a foot, in my own estimation, in a minute, and I shrunk as much, and as fast, at the latter part of it. I was confident he did not know me, and I as well knew it was me he had reference to. Aha! thought I, this admonition shall not lose its effect upon me; nor did it so long as I remained in the army.
I was soon after this transaction, ordered off, in company with about four hundred others of the Connecticut forces, to a set of old barracks, a mile or two distant in the Highlands, to be innoculated with the small pox. We arrived at and cleaned out the barracks, and after two or three days received the infection, which was on the last day of May. We had a guard of Massachusetts troops to attend us. Our hospital stores were deposited in a farmer's barn in the vicinity of our quarters. One day, about noon, the farmer's house took fire and was totally consumed, with every article of household stuff it contained, although there were five hundred men within fifty rods of it, and many of them within five, when the fire was discovered, which was not till the roof had fallen in. Our officers would not let any of the inoculated men go near the fire, and the guard had enough to do to save the barn, the fire frequently catching in the yard and on the roof, which was covered with thatch or straw. I was so near to the house, however, that I saw a cat come out from the cellar window, after the house had apparently fallen into the cellar; she was all in flames when she emerged from her premises and directed her course for the barn, but her nimble gait had so fanned her carcass before she reached the place of her destination that she caused no damage at all.
I had the small pox favorably as did the rest, generally; we lost none; but it was more by good luck, or rather a kind Providence interfering, than by my good conduct that I escaped with life. There was a considerable large rivulet which ran directly in front of the barracks; in this rivulet were many deep places and plenty of a species of fish called suckers. One of my room-mates, with myself, went off one day, the very day on which the pock began to turn upon me, we went up the brook until we were out of sight of the people at the barracks, when we undressed ourselves and went into the water, where it was often to our shoulders, to catch suckers by means of
